Locked doors, emergency plan part of schools' effort to be as safe as possible

LISD police chief says kids should be taught to have personal safety plan

Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District police officer Corey Williams explains how the school district prepares for an active shoot situation in the school police office at Cooper High School Friday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

K9 Sarge silently looks up at Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District police officer Celestino Carrillo after demonstrating how he can find drugs at Cooper High School Friday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Lubbock Independent School District Police Chief Jody Scifres said keycards have been installed on doors around the schools as a security feature which limits access to the school at Centennial Elementary School Wednesday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Teachers walk the halls of Centennial Elementary School Wednesday. Lubbock Independent School District Police Chief Jody Scifres says one of the security features used throughout the schools of LISD is keeping all exterior doors locked. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Lubbock Independent School District Police Chief Jody Scifres explains some of the security features used throughout the schools of LISD such as video cameras at Centennial Elementary School Wednesday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Lubbock Independent School District Police Chief Jody Scifres reflection can be seen as he explains some of the security features used throughout the schools of LISD at Centennial Elementary School Wednesday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Lubbock Independent School District Police Chief Jody Scifres explains some of the security features used throughout the schools of LISD at Centennial Elementary School Wednesday. (Stephen Spillman / AJ Media)

Some may be surprised to know the Lubbock Independent School District’s first priority isn’t education.

It’s actually the safety of students and staff, Superintendent Berhl Robertson said in a recent interview, because without that, the rest is difficult to accomplish.

In light of recent events, school officials have realized schools can never be safe enough. But there are deterrents — like having uniformed police officers on campus and controlled access points — that have created a safer learning environment for both students and staff.

Extra precautions

Earlier this school year, LISD revamped its emergency operation plan to contain safety procedures covering everything from a chemical spill on the front lawn to an armed subject inside. A quick reference guide in flip-chart format and plain language is kept in every classroom.

The new plan also enforced an all-doors-locked policy on every elementary campus. The front doors, which lock at the tardy bell, have a buzzer system in place that connects to an intercom and a security camera in the front office.

Secondary schools leave the front door unlocked for students to use.

LISD Police Chief Jody Scifres said those safety and security measures and others — such as kiosks that scan visitors’ names and drivers license pictures through a registered sex offender database — were included in the district’s 2010 bond package.

According to numbers provided by the district, a total of more than $5 million of the bond proceeds have been spent on safety and security. For fiscal year 2012-13, LISD spent 0.64 percent of its general funds in that category.

“It’s very preventative,” Robertson said. “We’re able now to secure our buildings — if we chose to, every door at any point in time, which we never had been before. It creates a much safer environment during the school day because we can control who is coming in the door.”

Lubbock-Cooper ISD has been locking its doors for as long as Police Chief Rick Saldaña — who is in his 15th year with the district — can remember. West and Central elementary schools — including Laura Bush Middle School — built since 2006 were designed with entry ways leading right into the office. Visitors without a district key card can’t enter the school without first passing through the office.

The district has similar software to check for registered sex offenders before allowing visitors near children.

In 2011, Lubbock-Cooper ISD spent a little more than $171,000 to remodel South Elementary School, Lubbock-Cooper Middle School and the high school’s entrances to reflect the same design. This was before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy in Newtown, Conn. and, more recently, the incident in which a middle school student opened fire on classmates in Roswell, N.M.

“Regretfully, those instances did occur. However, they didn’t have to occur for us to be proactive,” Saldaña said.

Districts records reflect a steady increase in budgeted amounts for the safety and security portion of general funds since 2009. For the 2013-14 school year, Lubbock-Cooper ISD has budgeted $558,839 — about 2 percent of the whole budget, said Jo Ellen Henderson, a spokeswoman for the district. This includes police officers’ salaries.

Saldaña said he knows safety and security has always been a priority for the superintendent and school board since the Lubbock-Cooper ISD police force was created in 1999 — not long after the Columbine shooting.

Since the district added four officers last January, Saldaña said Lubbock-Cooper is the only school district in Texas with a uniformed police officer on all of its campuses as well as a K-9 unit — a dog-officer team which checks classrooms for narcotics at the secondary schools each day.

Though the department was planning to expand anyway, the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012 made the district more aware of possible dangers — an awareness that helped speed up the process, Saldaña said.

LISD, too, added more officers recently, and Slaton ISD hired its first officer during the summer of 2013.

In an earlier interview with A-J Media, Slaton Assistant Superintendent Chris Smith said the district’s officer, Chief Steven Wheeler, would be based in the central office but also patrol each campus.

“The response time from campus to campus is really fast,” Smith said. “It’s an optimal situation for us.”

Roosevelt ISD has two police officers — one who doubles as a teacher, Roosevelt Superintendent Jimmy Parker said in an email. The district’s police department began in the early 1990s and, like others formed at that time, dealt with truancies and tried to develop a positive relationship with students so they would not be fearful of police officers, Parker said.

Police officers are there to protect, Henderson said. “I just don’t know how you could have a better feeling about that.”

Being aware

Saldaña said his officers go to work every day expecting something to happen.

“This could be the day,” he said. “You can profile, you can strategize, but the only true predictor is that nothing can be predicted.”

LISD officials feel the same way.

“You can never be safe enough,” Robertson said. “That’s the scary part about being in the public eye. You just can’t put bars on all your doors and windows. You can never train enough, you can never do enough drills.”

Knowing that, Scifres said he believes in empowering both students and employees to be proactive in their own safety. That’s even more important than flip charts and locked doors.

Scifres said he has had personal safety-related conversations with his own children and advises other parents to do the same.

“They need to know if something bad is happening, they need to get away from it as quickly as possible,” Scifres said. “The delay, the denial, the reaction time — all those things that come into affect when you see something that doesn’t make sense, and you haven’t ever worked through or thought about and you see it happening. It puts people in shock and they’ve never thought it would ever happen to them because they live their whole life thinking, ‘You know, that only happens on TV.’ ”

Talking through possible situations before they happen can lead to resolutions like the one in Roswell where a teacher was able to stop the shooter, Scifres said. For teacher orientation this school year, Lubbock-Cooper ISD started active shooter training with teachers.

Though it’s still in PowerPoint form, future training could include simulations of real-life events the officers themselves run one Saturday a month using professional Simunition equipment.

“You have to stay ahead,” Saldaña said.

Robertson said he doesn’t think it’s time to put metal detectors in schools, but that day could be coming. For now, however, he’s pleased with where the district is in terms of security, he said.

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My children attended Roosevelt years ago. On rare occasions I had to be there. The only way you could enter was through the main doors by the office, and someone came out and asked you why you were there.

So, I guess the formula is to pay the "rocket scientist" more money for his solution?

In the Sandy Hook incident, the shooter, shot the glass patricians on either side of the doors. What about the windows? Are they to be barred?

Any nutcase who wants to make an attack on a school will have taken the time to find weakness in these proposed measures. Since attacks like these do not occur on a daily basis, those assigned to watch, will become bored and inattentive.

This is simply an excuse of spending lots of money for protection, rather than spending the money to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people.

Windman has it right. With the exception of the Sandy Hook shooting all school violence has been student on student. Schools do a lousy job of dealing with bullying which I believe is the root of all violence among students. The students that engaged in school violence in the past were reported to be 'on the fringe'. They were ostracized by classmates, made fun of, or made to feel different, like they didn't belong. Kids will still be able to bring weapons in without being caught since there are no metal detectors. Students aren't any safer from that threat. Unfortunately we tend to have a knee jerk reaction so we start throwing money at the problem by having expensive security systems to keep intruders out instead of focusing on what the real problem is. Until bullying is addressed in a meaningful way & students are educated & empowered with tools to avoid being a victim, school shootings will continue.